


After ‘The End’

by lindsey_grissom



Series: Five Names 'Verse [4]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Elsie Hughes is a Lady, F/M, Sequel to a sequel to a sequel, and Charles Carson is a Lord, and they’re taking on France together, well as much of it as they can see from their bedroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 14:06:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13905612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: A somewhat smutty conclusion to the final part in my Lady Elizabeth series. NSFW





	After ‘The End’

Rain beats against the window panes, wind howls through the villa and she should care that there is a window open somewhere, that Charles's first experience of France is weather more suited to England, that they have little food left and no staff at all, but she cannot.

She curls her fingers around his, raised above her head, leans back into the mattress as he moves over her.

She has been Mrs Carson for only a few days and of all her names, all her titles she savours this one the most. Feels she has earned it, as much as anyone can earn the love of a man like Charles Carson.

He had thought to sign the licence as Lord Milton but she stopped him; Charles Carson has always been enough for her to love, his title simply makes that love acceptable to the world around them; and to her husband of course.

He pulls a hand from hers and cups her cheek. She blinks open her eyes, smiles and his thumb slips along the line of her bottom lip.

"I never imagined." He says, his voice the low growl she has come to learn is as close as he can get to a whisper. It is familiar to her now, as familiar as the strong tones that reverberate through every one of her Downton memories.

"What?"

He bends, lips brushing against her cheek, the corner of her mouth, the hollow of her neck. "You, like this."

And for anyone else she would know it is a line, a lie; they would have imagined, perhaps not quite this but something like it. Of her beneath them amongst sheets and blankets. But she believes him when he says he has not imagined it. For every fantasy she allowed herself, he kept them locked tightly away. She was outside of his reach and he left her there.

"I hope I don't disappoint."

He moves further down, lips and tongue following the valley between her breasts. Such a quick learner, her husband. Such a talented lover.

His turns his head, rests his left ear against her breast, his breath puffing out against the other. Hot air that tightens her nipple as well as the coldest of Januarys can.

"You're beautiful." He says and it is answer enough.

She brings a hand down to card through his hair, wild and curling at the ends where it has dried without any pomade.

His head rises and falls with every breath she takes and with each of his she can feel her body exciting.

"Are you asleep?" She asks when the room has been filled for minutes with nothing but the rain at the window an the wind in the hall.

"I might be dreaming." He says. "Don't wake me."

She had never thought she could love him more than she has all these years. Oh she knew that with time and knowledge she might cherish him, might love other parts of him, but he has had hold of her heart for such a long time that she could not imagine a change there.

But she does love him more, with every day spent by his side, with every argument and loud debate, with each brush of his hand to hers, every time he meets her eyes over a tea cup and asks if she would like another.

With every word that leaves his mouth that is not 'yes milady', with each honest opinion and rare sentimental folly; he is dearer to her than she could ever have thought anyone could be.

And she fears she lacks the words to ever tell him so.

"You're not dreaming." She says and tugs at his hair, tilts his head back so that he might meet her eyes. "Wake up."

He smiles and his eyebrow tickles her skin as it moves with the expression.

A hand settles at her waist, curves around her hip and over her stomach. "This is for every touch we never had."

It is a game, she supposes, one started when his lips left hers in those first minutes of 1925 and he told her the next kiss would be for every kiss they never had.

She reaches for his hand, tugs it up and over her breast, presses his palm down onto the hard bud of her nipple.

"Every touch." She agrees and moans as she slides his hand across her, rubs his thumb in tight circles.

He shifts and is above her once more, knees tucked into the 'v' of her thighs.

His hands cup her shoulders, slide outwards down her arms to her elbow, to her wrists. His palms meet hers, fingers tangling together as he holds her splayed against the bed. He curls their arms up, along the sheets until he has their hands above her head again, his face so close she can feel the thrum of the pulse in his jaw.

He nips at her ear, her hair a tangled mess beneath her head, the ends trailing up just enough of the bed to tickle against her wrists.

"Mrs Carson." He presses the words into her mouth, follows them with his tongue.

"Elsie." She says, because he has yet to say it and it has become like him joining her for tea now, like his mind; something she longs to know the reality of.

"Lady Milton." He dips to her collar, runs lips and teeth along the bone. Gently; the rasp of his skin — unshaved now for hours — the sharpest part of him.

His fingers leave hers and stroke back down her arms, along her sides as he shuffles down the bed, mouth never stopping, a wet trail to her stomach, a tongue lapping at her navel.

He noses at the curls between her legs and she bends, back bowing as she tries to hold back, to not let her body rush them both to what she is remembering.

She never thought it would be like this; she would have been content, happy with his mind and his attention, with his love. But to have his passion laid to other things, to be the sole focus of a man who maintained a house of such standards she has heard it mentioned in talk here in France, is so much more than merely contentment, happiness.

This is, she thinks as his mouth touches her _there_ , what all those poems were written about.

She gasps, her breath drawing in in stutters, billowing out of her as his tongue dips in.

She knows this dance now, how he will open her, how his mouth and fingers will spin her high and take her to the edge, hold her there until she cannot care about the world and only needs him inside her, with her; feeling the ground drop away beneath them.

He was as innocent of this as she was before, but together it feels like art, like she is the canvas beneath the Mona Lisa and he is painting a masterpiece.

Her fingers scrabble at the bed, clutch at handfuls of sheet and hair.

"Enough " She whispers and he stops, fingers stilling, head rising and she feels so cold without his breath but she needs more, _him_ and has neither the patience nor the will to wait.

"I love you."

His eyes darken as they have each time she has said the words; that early morning in her house, tucked away in the wine cellar at Downton, as he slid the ring on her finger in Paris.

Tonight in this bed. "I love you."

His fingers are gone only a second, two before he is against her, but she feels each moment like an ache.

His hands find hers again and she cannot look away from his eyes as her body opens for him, as he fills her.

And she is filled; her heart, her mind, _her body_. Filled with him and she will be no good to anyone if it does not lessen, but not now, not here in this villa with its open window and empty halls.

Her body moves with his, lifts as he lowers, falls when he pulls back. Feels that climb again, faster, clearer; the throb of him echoing through her.

His hands tighten, fingers gripping hers tight enough to leave marks with his nails that she will find later and he will kiss in apology. He is close and she is ahead of him, the coil low in her stomach pulling taut until it snaps, pleasure shatters through her and she might say his name, might take the Lord's in vain. Her eyes close and she feels him quicken, feels the stillness in his body as he reaches his own end, fills her again, another way and softens.

The window rattles beneath the rain as it batters the glass and he falls to the bed beside her, gathers her close with his arms.

"I love you." He says into her ear as he holds her, curls around her back; covers her more completely than the sheets that have long since fallen to the floor. "Elsie."

If she cries, they are happy tears and she slips her fingers between his on her stomach, locks them together.

Her ring is warm against her skin and he is hot against her back and through the villa the wind howls as they sleep.

 

**End.**


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